White girl rappers and the moving net.

The Boy Illinois was watching a music video and bopping his head, and General looked up and asked “What are you watching?” and got up from his seat to stand behind him.

“New white girl from California,” Illi said. “Kreayshawn.”

The hook was relentless – Gucci, Gucci/ Louie, Louie/ Fendi, Fendi/ Prada/ The basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even botha – and General and Illi sat mesmerized, unsure how to react. “Not a lot of flow,” G said. “And yet…” he tilted his head, “just enough to make you listen.”

“Just enough.” The Boy Illinois looked at the screen and shook his head sheepishly. “1.2 million views…”

I flipped away from the screen, returned to my seat, grabbed my phone, and searched her stats. Shot over to google to find her twitter, just as the Kreayshawn from youtube spit, “Now google that/ groupies follow me like twitter.” Found her tumblr, found her cargo collective profile, found a Village Voice article by Andy Hutchins titled “Beyond Kreayshawn: The Women in Hip-Hop Who The Internet Should Freak Out About Next.” Wow, I think, this “Kreayshawn” is already being phased out. My eyes skipped past the embedded video to the opening graph:

“Last week, the birth of rap’s newest star-to-be happened suddenly.” Doesn’t it always? “Kreayshawn, a California rapper with Amy Winehouse’s tattoos and piercings…” I scan the page for a date. “Jesus,” I say.

The guys look over. G says, “What?”

“Just searched Kreayshawn, and found an article reading ‘Last week, the birth of rap’s new star so and so…’ So I check the date, and it’s May 27. Yesterday.The writer’s already writing about the Internet needing to move” – I do my best Bennett Brauer air quotes – “‘beyond her.’”

“It moves fast,” Illi says.

“There’s a machine behind that,” G says nodding confidently.

“Illi, when’d you hear of her?”

“Bout a week and a half ago,” he says. “Found her picture, liked it, clicked.”